


no need for a renewal

by firstdrafted



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 12:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2110473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstdrafted/pseuds/firstdrafted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Second marriages are for chumps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no need for a renewal

**Author's Note:**

> Established relationship John x Sherlock. Domestic bliss, takes place after a hypothetical Series 4 in which Mary is out of the picture and John is living in 221B again, canon compliant up to Series 3. Rated T/PG-13 for one brief reference to sexual spanking.

After what seems like two decades of steady decline, Harry, apropos of nothing, gets sober, gets promoted, and gets a live-in girlfriend. Not in that order.

"So," John says, as the movers, large packing boxes obscuring their faces, weave around them in the new house (mansion!) as if performing some kind of exotic mating dance, "when should I expect the invitation?"

Harry rolls her eyes. He knows that look. He  _hates_ that look, the “don’t be stupid, John, haven’t you supposed to have grown out of being this stupid by now?” look which carves out a sullen childhood and a bitter adolescence in its spaces. (Sherlock gives him that look a lot, though less often now that he knows John will either put him over his knee or refuse to make a second cup of tea for the next week.)

"You should only get married once," she explains. "The first time you can blame it on being young and fucking stupid. The second time, you have no excuses."

"Nice," he tells her.

She shrugs. “Never claimed to be a romantic,” she lies baldly, and then goes off to corral the electric keyboard into the music room (the music room!).

John gets home from “helping” Harry and her harem of movers late that night, the summer twilight that seems to last for  _hours_ long faded into the pure pitch black of nights in the city, and finds Sherlock staring into the crack on the mantle. Years ago, when he first moved in, he would’ve thought Sherlock was deep in contemplation of the effect of lunar phases on crime rates, or the many ways to disguise a body with sulfuric acid.

He knows better now. Sherlock is barely aware of the fact that there  _is_ a moon. The thought swells him with sudden affection.

"Budge up," he says to the hair, and Sherlock looks up at him and smiles with the creases of his eyelids.

"We should get a dog," Sherlock says contemplatively.

"Mrs. Hudson would have a fit," John answers automatically, though he suspects she would have no such thing and would probably spoil the damn thing rotten.

"A dog would help with the work. Tracking by scent, heading off home invaders—"

"Mine detecting," John smirks, because of course the idiot wants a faithful animal sidekick to run around with him catching criminals.

"It’s only because I know you’re slowing, what with the encroaching middle age," Sherlock says, though there’s barely any bite to it at all.

"That’s me, a regular spinster." John levers himself up from the couch. "Eaten yet?"

"Sandwich."

"I left that for you for lunch."

Sherlock’s shrugs are expressive, but usually only tend to express varying degrees of existential disdain. He pulls out  _That is barely any semblance of a rational argument at all, try harder or I will loudly declare my boredom at you_  now. “So I ate it for lunch.”

Of course he did. John sighs and heads for the takeaway drawer.

The menu on top is for the Chinese place Sherlock swears is the best Sichuan in London. John pauses with his fingers on the glossy paper.

If he were going to propose, he thinks, it would be in a dumpy little Chinese takeaway with fluorescent lighting flickering in the corner, over the same bowl of dandan noodles they shared after John shot someone for Sherlock for the first time. About as far from the Landmark Hotel as you can get. When he looks up, Sherlock is watching him.

"Do you think we should get married?" John asks.

The furrow in Sherlock’s brow grows deeper, the way it only does when faced with an intellectual conundrum whose answer he hasn’t squirreled away in the back of his mind. John is a little relieved that apparently Sherlock has thought about this as little as he has. “That depends,” Sherlock says eventually. “Would you have an opinion on the napkin folds this time?”

John snorts. It took him two minutes to figure out how the damn opera house unfolded. He’s not doing that again if he doesn’t have to. "Might as well stick them in napkin rings and call it a day." 

"Better not then," Sherlock decides. "Besides, I daresay your second cousin or whatever might not want to officiate again."

That’s probably true, John reflects, and is surprised at the relief that pulses through him at the thought. Still. “Don’t you think we should? Declare devotion. Exchange vows. You know. It wasn’t all bad, last time.”

Sherlock shrugs, one of his rare bodily expressions of something other than irritation or exasperation, a long, slow “c’est la vie” shrug that ripples across his shoulders and down his spine. ”Once is quite enough for that sort of thing in couples, don’t you think?” he asks, and there is something — something warm and rare and shy in the way his skin crinkles around his eyes.

John looks at him, and smiles. And then he reaches for the delivery menu.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this photoset](http://firstdrafted.tumblr.com/post/93816598626), and the idea that John, without the impetus of social pressure, isn't really the marrying type, and that Sherlock's already publicly declared his love and devotion to John once already. Title is (appropriately) a reference to the practice of renewing one's vows.


End file.
